Vulcain Cricket Pop Quiz!

When I was in middle school, I had a very good history teacher. And he had a way of giving a piece of fact in language that could be deceptive.

One question I remember was this - 

Who was the first US President born in the United States of America?

Now to our way of thinking, and our nascent understanding of Presidential Electoral requirements, it seemed like a trick question. Like who's buried in Grant's Tomb?

I had a quick Google, and thankfully Donald Trump's favorite South African adoptee and his team of nitwits haven't done a virtual arson job on this (yet)...

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Long story short, the first US President born as a United States Citizen was Martin Van Buren, born in 1782 - and no, he did not receive a Vulcain Cricket ; )

Now history notes that the first sitting US President to receive a Vulcain Cricket was indeed President Truman in 1953 (although the case back on his gold Vulcain Cricket was engraved 1952).

But - spoiler alert - he was not the first US President to wear a Vulcain Cricket!

My new book on the history of the Vulcain Cricket and the Presidents of the US will be released in March, and all will be revealed! 

Stay tuned for preorder information.

A Grand Day Out - Visiting Vulcain HQ in Le Locle Part 1

I had the opportunity to visit the Vulcain HQ not once, but twice this past autumn in September and then again in November.

Yes, I came to see the watches and to gather information, but before I could even walk through the door of the villa, I was already transported to a different time and place as my driver pulled up out front.

One quick point, this is not what would be referred to as the "ancestral" home of Vulcain, as that building is in La Chaux-de-Fonds, just down the street from ochs und junior and has been converted into a rather elegant apartment building -

This is as it looks now (including the author's hand).

And here is how it looked "back in the day" -

Courtesy of Vulcain

Needless to say, things have changed a bit. But a walk through the gardens around the current home office will take you right back to the early days -

The grounds are immaculate, and the surrounding neighborhood is quiet and serene. You would never know that Tissot and Mido are just around the corner and up the hill.

And the back garden was just the place to try on some of the latest Vulcain offerings -

This (above) is one of the latest offerings from Vulcain, and I must admit my personal favorite.

Some other interesting options -

And as you can see, photographed in "real" conditions.

And a ladies model that the person running things in the HQ, Carla Duarte, was kind enough to model -

We popped back into the candy store, I mean villa, and saw some more pieces -

But as the old saying goes, there can be only one, and this one (below) really speaks to me.

I have spent the last 24 years thinking about the Vulcain Cricket and its relationship to the Presidents, and the last 11 years writing about it. In researching the posts you have been reading, I have had an opportunity to read about and see (at least the images) of the various presidents and their Vulcain watches. For whatever reason, of the current collection this one seems the closest fit to the past. 

It goes without saying that we are all living in challenging times. And it is also fair to say that in hindsight (and sometimes even real time) the people we elect to office do not always live up to our expectations. But I am also convinced that just as the United States is what has been referred to by someone far more eloquent than me as a "grand experiment", the US and the Presidents have, are, and will continue to be the touchstone of some pretty remarkable accomplishments. And the Vulcain Cricket has been with them for many of these moments -  The Civil Rights Bill (Eisenhower) followed by the Civil Rights Act and  the Great Society (Johnson) to name just a few. 

If nothing else, the Vulcain Cricket reminds me that just because things could be better now, it doesn't mean that we should stop working and trying to make them so. But then again, I am a hopeless romantic.

Tune in next time for a look at how today's Vulcain Cricket is made, and a look at some of the lesser-known history of Vulcain. 

Until then - Tempus Fugit!

The Greatest Marketing Campaign That Never Was (a marketing campaign) - Part 1

For the past 20 plus years, I have been writing about Vulcain, and more specifically the Vulcain Cricket and its relationship to various US Presidents. And what I've learned along the way is that there is a dearth of actual, factual information on how so many US Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon) came to be Vulcain Cricket owners. Several of my more well-heeled colleagues in the Fourth and Fifth Estate (and to some extent, yours truly as well) have sustained a fairly flawed belief that the Vulcain watch company had conceived of, and launched a marketing campaign to present a watch to each US Presidents. And after a visit to Vulcain HQ and a perusal of what documentation actually exists, it became quite clear to me that I needed a better source...

Well, all I can say is that it's good to have friends! A few calls were made, and Michel Ditisheim invited me to come over and talk about the Cricket, the Presidents, his friendship with the Paajanen family, and even a bit about life.

For those of you just turning in, Michel Ditisheim
is perhaps the last, best link to the original Vulcain, the "middle" Vulcain and today's Vulcain. His father was the inventor of the original Cricket. Michel worked with the Paajanen family to help present Vulcain Cricket watches to former US Presidents in the 1990s and 2000s, and he was instrumental in shepherding Vulcain through the rocky quartz crisis and ultimately to its reemergence with new owners in Le Locle earlier this century. His father, Robert Ditisheim, was not unlike the guy who said "What if we slice the bread, before we sell it?" In other words, when he created the Vulcain Cricket, he brought to reality something many people wanted - they just didn't know it yet!

"It was a sensation!"  - Michel Ditisheim.

So what is agreed upon by everyone? The very first Vulcain Cricket to be presented to a sitting US President was given to Harry Truman by the White House Press Corps. It was not a gift from Vulcain. When I asked Mr. Ditisheim why they chose the Vulcain Cricket, his answer was elegantly succinct - "It was a sensation!"

It is important to understand that at the time it was introduced, the Cricket represented something that had not been seen before. A wrist watch with an alarm. What was often referred to as a "secretary on the wrist".  It's interesting that many of us think of alarm watches as useful for waking us up. But for you younger readers out there, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we typed out our correspondence with an Olivetti Lettera 22 -

Courtesy of Wikipedia

 We did not receive Google Reminders on our cell phones. Owners of alarm watches would use them frequently during the day to set the alarm for meeting reminders, etc.

Yes, the Vulcain Cricket was indeed a sensation. So it made sense that the press corps would present such a watch to President Truman. But then the history gets murkier. 

So stay tuned, we're going to shed some much needed light!